"The PFA does not represent players when they have broken the law and been convicted on non-football matters."- Gordon Taylor in 2009 following Marlon King's release after a prison sentence for sexual assault & ABH

Batting on after lunch, I suppose it might be the only chance that Bresnan gets for a knock before the Tests. Reasonably satisfying workout so far, the pluses (tons for Cook, Patel, runs for Trott and Prior) outweighing the minuses (injury to Finn, failures for Bell and Compton).

Three warm-up games give you quite a few options, but if they want to give everyone a game n the first two, Root, Bairstow, Broad, Onions and Panesar come in for Cook, Trott, Bresnan, Finn and Swann I suppose. Depends on whether Finn will be fit to play.

Good workout in the end. Only real minus is Finn injury as the bats who failed have more than one match left to find form. Advantage of preparing properly I suppose and not turning up all arrogant expecting it to be alright on the night.

pretty sweet article about the whole TMS thing that erupted the other day

England must not have had anything equivalent to Roy and HG for Test Match Sofa to be considered either new or amusing. I mean, I don't think they should be precluded from broadcasting or anything, they're just monumentally unfunny.

WWCC - Loyaulte Mi Lie"People make me happy.. not places.. people""When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life." - Samuel Johnson

"Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself" - Tony Benn

So Sky are going to use the STAR feed but have the regular Sky commentators (Nasser and co.) sat in a studio in England providing commentary? It's gonna feel pretty strange, especially when the feed cuts to the STAR/Indian commentators talking in the box whilst we hear the Sky team.

Or Sivaramakrishnan. I don't know if he is part of their commentary set-up though. I know they usually have Bhogle, Gavaskar, Shastri, Ganguly, Wilko and Wasim. I remember reading Warney is going to be doing commentary for them for a couple of Tests. I'd always prefer the Sky team though.

Sorry but it's a completely arsewipe-ish thing to do. If you're going to do pathetic petty things like that then why bother having warm-up games and A tours? Preparing warm-up or A tour pitches that are completely alien to what the normal pitches are is similarly the act of an arsewipe. It will just lead to petty retaliation and teams having warm-up and A tours in different countries to those that they're touring.

Unfortunately it doesn't surprise me in the least that there are people who aren't not only failing to condemn, but actually coming out to support these petty acts.

Cricket should not be stooping to this sort of level. Nobody is suggesting India give England a look at the Test bowling attack, but they should be treating touring teams and the game of cricket with a greater degree of respect than this. If this sort of nonsense is acceptable where does it end? How about sending England off to the crappiest facilities? Spike their food? Steal their equipment? Hire bands to keep them awake at night?

It is called as Home advantage. What next? India should prepare bouncy tracks in the "spirit of the game" to give England an equal footing?

India gave England full respect by fielding a team which had 10 current International players, no less. All of them are vying for a spot in the Indian team, and you're talking as if they were not taking this seriously. What a joke! Let me ask you, which tour game in England had a home team fielding more than 5 International players?

Actually they should be thanking the BCCI for putting the likes of Yuvraj Singh, Raina, Dinda, Pathan etc, who are all test team hopefuls, in the team as a bad game for them could've reduced the confidence level of these players.

That even a pie chucker, apparently "unfit" Yuvraj Singh could bag a fifer in this game, England should actually be thankful to BCCI for saving a bit of their morale by not fielding a proper spinner.